Guardian
by Eye of a Hawk
Summary: Everyone knows the Chambers gets inside your head and brings out your deepest fears. What nobody has ever thought to ask, is how? Crossover with Empire from the Ashes. Set before Mutineers Moon and after Protector of the Small. Young Jiltanith.


"Everyone knows the Chambers gets inside your head and brings out your deepest fears. What nobody has ever thought to ask, is _how_?"

* * *

><p>Guardian<p>

The little girl approached the doors with instinctual caution. The engraved faces glared down at her like no living human in that world. Faces that had terrified and intrigued hundreds of pages, squires, and knight candidates. This one had taken longer than her yearmates to approach the enigma. She did it alone.

She just stood in front of the doors for a while. Her large almond eyes were neither fearful nor calculating. There was only the slightest hint of curiosity. The knights that had gone before her would have (and had) called her naïve.

Eventually she reached her hand out. The long slender- and cursedly tan- fingers traced the grooves of the face, not quite touching the ancient material. Then they moved down to the motifs of fantastical- but here, on this world, real- creatures. Manticore. Wyvern. Unicorn.

Dragon.

They lingered on the Dragon, drawing a strange sort of comfort from its terrifying visage. It was onto of that figure that she finally rested her hand.

Instantly a great presence swelled up behind her eyes. The roiling power slammed through her then slid to an abrupt stop, coiling at the edges of an invisible barrier.

She was standing in nothingness. Infinity stretched out beside her. Ghostly figures danced at the corners of her eyes. She knew they'd disappear if she tried to catch them with her eyes.

_Hello._ she called. Not externally. Internally.

The presence froze.

Another sensation whirled through her mind. Like someone trying to find a key to fit to a door long left locked. She called again.

_Hello._

A missing piece slid into place. The girl felt herself stretching out, enveloping the infinity beside her. Everything sharpened into perfect clarity. The ghostly figures solidified. She could see everything in those never-ending streams.

Then a voice answered her call.

_Greetings._

It sounded tired. She'd never known one to be tired before. She hadn't thought they could.

_You are quite the unusual child, little one._

She smiled at the familiar nickname. _Hello. What's your name?_

_I am called the Chamber of the Ordeal now._ it replied. The girl wrinkled her nose.

_But surely you had a nickname. We always came up with nicknames. What did they call you?_

It had to pause for a moment. It was something unnoticeable by the humans of this world, but was something that would have told its creators it was searching in memories long past.

The little girl noticed.

_Luci. _It finally said. _They called me Luci._ The little girl grinned. _We called ours Danni._ She narrowed her eyes a little. _But you're different._ She paused, trying to put the sensation into thoughts the presence could understand. _Your feel…you feel like Poppa. You feel like Poppa when we talked like this._ Her eyes lit up as she managed to put the feeling into a familiar context.

It made her quiet for a few minutes; wandering down that path of memories she'd unwittingly reminded herself of. The presence waited.

_Could you…_she started hesitantly. She ducked her head and finished in a rush, _Could you show me what you really look like? I miss it._

The presence paused again, digging through millennia of memories. When it found it, the world turned white.

The girl craned her head upward, sighing happily. She could barely see the ceiling. The room stretched out for miles in front of her. The clear floor squeaked as she made her way over to the huge display. Not that she needed to, to see. It was just the sheer effect. The pull of something she'd not seen in a great many years, and had never really been permitted to see properly anyway.

The image of a planet revolved on the display. But there was too much blue.

_This isn't this planet, is it?_

_No. _The computer replied sadly. _It is not. This is my home planet. This is where I was made, and where I was stationed. _

_It's beautiful. _she breathed. _I've never been there before. _

_And neither have I, not for a great many years. _

The girl crawled up onto a couch and curled up on top, giving him as much as a physical hug as she could. The computer felt something it had never felt before. Nostalgia. Sadness. And a loneliness that it only just noticed now because there was someone to fill that void.

He'd forgotten what it felt like, to have a crew. It wanted to banish that feeling. Find something happier.

Dragging memories out of deep storage- he didn't know when they'd stopped being data and become memories- he struggled to remember what he'd done for the children all those millennia ago.

That's right.

_Would you like to see the atrium?_ he asked. _It's sunny today._ Her answer was to bounce out of her chair and dash to the grav lift. But before she reached it, she flickered and disappeared.

* * *

><p>Jiltanith fell backwards as a painfully strong grip yanked her away from the door. She sprawled on the floor staring up into Jasson's face. He didn't look happy. More like downright furious.<p>

"What were you doing? You were sitting there for so long I thought you'd died!"

He was shaking. Jiltanith couldn't tell if it was in anger or fear. Or of her or the Chamber. So she reacted as she always did when faced with something she didn't know now to deal with.

"So I'm weird if I don't go and I'm terrifying when I do? You people need to make up your minds."

"You were sitting there for _two hours_." he hissed tightly "I've never seen someone there for more than 10 minutes." He was breathing heavily. "The Chamber is dangerous. People have _died_ in there."

Too enraged to say anything further and still be coherent, he whirled around and stalked away. Jiltanith checked to make sure his back was turned before gently placing her hand back on the door.

"I'll be back." She whispered silently. She felt the computer acknowledge it through her child's implant as she rose and ran to catch up with Jasson.


End file.
